Drill, Drill, Drill = Jobs, Jobs, Jobs in North Dakota; Both Oil Production and Jobs Reach Record Highs

More than 11 million barrels of oil were produced in North Dakota during the month of March, setting a new monthly production record, and topping the previous monthly record high from last November by almost half-a-million barrels.  Oil production in North Dakota has doubled in just the last two years, and tripled since 2007 (see chart above, data here).  

A recent computer model using geological data from the state of North Dakota estimates that there is 200-300 billion barrels of oil in North Dakota's Bakken Formation, which is equivalent to the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.  Not all of the Bakken oil is recoverable, and estimates of recovery range from 3-50%.  

According to the state of North Dakota, 

"The Bakken play on the North Dakota side of the basin is still early in the learning curve. Technology and the price of oil will dictate what is potentially recoverable from this formation."

Along with the record production of oil in March, employment for natural resources and mining jobs in North Dakota reached a new record high in March of more than 14,000 jobs.  That's a doubling of the number of oil jobs in just 16 months since December 2009, at a rate of more than 20 new oil jobs being added every business day of the week for the last two years.  For the month of April, the jobless rate in North Dakota was only 3.3%, almost a full percent below the second lowest rate of 4.2% in Nebraska, and far below the national average of 9%.